Parenting

My baby is 6 weeks old. I’ve been planning to buy some loop earplugs “soon”. Well she just discovered a kind of cry that reverberates in my amygdala, so “soon” was NOT SOON ENOUGH.

Sigh. I’m gonna buy loops once my partner is awake. Yknow, so I can ask what colour he wants his in…

Eta for context! Loops and ear defenders specifically don’t block all noise, they just reduce the decibels of loud sounds. So using them means you can be more physically present for a baby with colic (and probably other fun ailments that happen later) longer before you need to step away from your nerves being fried. This is especially life-saving for neurodivergent parents, obviously, but I’d bet most parents get stressed and tetchy during certain cries.

Tl;dr still always reply to your baby when they cry! And it’s okay to use tools that make the experience gentler on yourself.

My impression is that people in North America are very careful not to swear around their kids. I’ve gotten the impression (from pop culture, so dubious quality) that one of the reasons is they’re frequently reprimanded at school for this.

I (born late 80’s) wasn’t raised this way, and I don’t plan on raising my kids that way either. To me, swearing is part of the language and an abstinence only approach to it seems backwards in and for exactly the same reasons the same approach to sex ed does: the trick is in how and when, not “don’t do it, it’s immoral”.

I assume there are people with different strategies out there and I’d appreciate your view on this!

... some kid in the daycare has lice.

We went through this a couple of years ago: one kid had a tonne of lice in his hair, my wife got infested and ended up shaving her head. The other kid and I lucked out.

Regardless of what happens, we've got some short summer haircuts in our future.

We've transitioned our 1yo out of our bed and to their own cot. We had to co-sleep after they puked on their old cot and refused to sleep at all once it was cleaned. Every time we've gotten them used to the cot something messes it up like travelling etc. but it's finally looking like something stable.

I was amazed the other night because it was the first time ever we didn't need to hold a hand or pat them to sleep, I could just lay them down in bed and watched them drift off.

The sleep is a little better but still not sleeping through the night and also constantly sick from daycare so they keep waking up cause of the coughing. When they were with us it was a lot easier to put the pacifier back in and go back to sleep but now we have to get out of bed to send them back to sleep.

Then there's also the night feeds... we're still doing a 10:30pm bottle and another bottle anywhere from 3am to 7am, it all depends on how much they ate during the day. Which they've now decided they don't like any of the food we make even though it's exactly the same stuff that would be at daycare. Which then prolongs the cycle of not eating enough and needing night feeds and then not eating much because there was milk overnight. I feel like we have to cut the night feeds somehow but it feels really cruel to starve them when they're used to it...

I just hope getting them to their own bed will be a positive turning point and we'll actually be sleeping through the night soon. I know other people have it worse but everyone I talk to directly has babies that sleep from 8pm to 8am with no stirring and no bottle, it's making me feel like I'm messing something up. Overall still feels like we're taking positive steps though.

Thanks for reading the rant.

I just wanted to say that I think it would be a great idea for more parents to look into remote or online school. We all know that there's a lot of risk in traditional schools these days, and it's so important to keep our kids safe.

Another great option is pathway schools. These are schools where kids learn basic math and other subjects up to 6th or 8th grade. Then, they can choose to diverge into other areas of study like plumbing, psychology, or even business. I'm not totally sure what they're called or if we have them in the US, but I've heard they're really good for kids! They seem to make them feel happier and more content, and they encourage them to learn more and go further.

Our son surprises us with what he is capable of time and time again. He is almost 1 and a half years old and he has one of those toys where you press a button and it plays a story. It's in Korean and I like the "빨간 모자" (Little Red Riding Hood) story so I set it up to play this one when he plays with it.

Anyway, we were sitting on the bed and he had a towel over his head and I mentioned he looks like Little Red Riding Hood, and then his mom started telling the beginning of the story. He went down from the bed and left the room, we assumed that it was too boring with us.

But shortly after he came back with the previously mentioned toy and told us to turn it on so he could listen to the story.

When they're so small you always wonder what they understand and what not. Here he not only understood the story, but remembered that this specific toy is telling the same story and he remembered where he put it and brought it and made himself clear he want's us to turn on this story. Does that count as partially abstract thinking?

Do folks here have school age kids? Curious about parenting struggles and how issues have been resolved.

Image description: a screenshot from Apple Health showing a terrible night’s sleep.

My 14 month old had a short wake up at 2:40am. For whatever reason (work stress, mostly) I couldn’t get back to sleep. I’ll be running on about 4 hours of sleep and caffeine today.